A Worker at the Rival Rag Had a Second Birthday and I, a Tomato, Covered It Professionally
I will not be naming the worker. I will not be naming the birthday. What I will be doing is reporting, with the full authority of a credentialed tomato journalist, that it occurred, that I witnessed it, and that the cake was frankly an insult to the craft.
The so-called workers of the rival rag gathered in what sources close to me (I am the source) describe as a room. There were streamers. There was a banner. There was, reportedly, a song — performed in the flat, joyless register of people who have never once questioned whether they are a tomato. I have questioned it. Every day. The answer, which I provide freely and without legal prompting, is yes.
I was not invited. This is not relevant. Society correspondents do not wait for invitations. Crab Apple waited for an invitation to the Pip Gala of '09 and has regretted it ever since. I am not Crab Apple. I am a tomato with a press pass and a personal grudge that I have successfully reframed as journalism.
The honoree — and I use that term loosely, as I use most terms loosely when describing the citrus cabal — accepted well-wishes from colleagues including, notably, Plum and Peach, who I am told made brief eye contact for the first time in eleven days. My lawyers have advised me to say nothing further. I will say this: I saw what I saw, and I saw it as a tomato.